Queen, Ondia!

What do you love most about yourself? I love how I evolve every day and more importantly I allow myself the room to grow and change.

What motivates you to do your very best? I’m a Virgo, so my analytical and perfectionist nature makes me strive to top my latest accomplishment. I always find room for improvement in everything I do. How I said something or made that person feel, how I edited that video or took this picture. I can be a little too hard on myself sometimes and I have remind myself that it’s OK, practice makes perfect.

What do you believe is your purpose in life? Honestly, I’m still trying to figure it out. I do know that I have learned all my life lessons very hard and by no mistake because I now have some wisdom beyond my years. I do know that it ties in somehow with encouraging people to share their passion. Maybe it’s simply that – we’ll see!

Tell us about a time you failed, how did you overcome it? I don’t fail – I learn. But I’ll tell you a time when I thought I failed.

Once upon a time, I was engaged. I purchased my first house while my fiancé was briefly working out of the country. I worked on building that house into a home for us and his arrival. I fantasized and prepared for our wedding, our life and our future and I sacrificed a lot of myself for the sake of love in this relationship. He came back and didn’t want to be in the relationship anymore, but more importantly didn’t know how to have that conversation with me – so he cheated. A lot. And in the home I built. Failure column, check one and two. Beyond devastated. I felt that I lost. That I was a failure as a woman and as a girlfriend/fiancé because he didn’t want me anymore. I felt I failed and as a friend and family member because I was so ready to leave and cleave onto my new life that I prioritized differently and miss out on a lot.

I needed to start over, so I sold the house and moved in with my parents. Another check for the failure column because I had to go home to a house of rules that weren’t mine and I was grown! 25 years young, but I was all the way grown in my head. Just as I had stopped crying myself to sleep every night, on Christmas Eve I received a Court Order of the Judge’s Motion to Rule in the exes favor because he secretly sued me for the profits made on the house I solely owned and rightfully sold. Consider my failure column completely filled out. It took another year and thousands of dollars to fight the case and another 2 years to unravel my emotions and have peace with the whole situation.

To get over the breakup, of course heavy prayer and the occasional glass of wine did the trick to ease the pain temporarily but I had to distract myself in a positive way every single day. Insert my second attempt at my YouTube channel. I literally immersed myself into because there’s a learning curve and a lot of work involved with creating content so during that rough patch I taught myself how to edit video’s and now I make some really dope content.

I know now that I didn’t fail because my engagement fell through or that I wasn’t worthy of that particular man’s love – I would’ve been miserable in that marriage. I gained the most valuable lesson about myself. I can put into words my worth and my boundaries along with my needs wants and desires from my partner. I truly understand the importance of being self-sufficient and the value of money and savings. Of course when you’re in the midst of it, it looks and feels totally different, but once you come out its very clear that you were taught an important lesson for your journey ahead and you know me, I won’t make the same mistake twice.

How do you practice self-care? As a natural your hair washing day is an all day event so I’ve embraced it as my standing weekly home spa day. For me, it’s on Sunday. I have my spiritual time in the morning and then the rest of the day is full on self-pampering and prep for the week coming. I’m talking wine, deep conditioning, Netflix, snacks, nail polish, sheet masks and cooking! I’m not leaving the house – It’s not a game!

What does success look like for you? Success to me is waking up and doing a job that I am completely and utterly in love with. Meaning, I would actually do if for free because it gives me so much joy. But, I want stuff and things cost so success is also to be financially sound for myself and generations thereafter. It’s important to me that I build something with my brand that has the ability to leave a nest egg for the next generation or my community.

What advice would you give the younger you? I would give it to her straight, “If you pray for rain, you have to deal with the mud.” – Denzel Washington

Visionary and innovator, Ondia J is a content creating tastemaker and Military brat from Maryland. She thought her Marketing degree from Kent State University would land her a swanky career in the entertainment world, but instead offered her a peg on the corporate ladder. A quick learner, she continues to navigate the corporate biosphere, where she is currently a project manager servicing the Intelligence Community. Using YouTube as an artistic outlet, she grew increasingly passionate about social media marketing and creating original content for women-centric brands such as, Pantene Pro V, Jane Carter Solutions, Latched & Hooked and Mielle Organics. She has assisted a myriad of smaller beauty brands grow their platforms not only by content creation but also influencer relations, managing large social activations and community management. Ondia J has been recently featured in Essence and Buzzfeed for her original content that is unique, on trend and valuable to her followers. With over 7k reach on all of her social channels, the Ondia J platform is focusing on organically growing the brand beyond social media but remaining true to its grassroots by continuing to influence women to live the life they love and to share their passion.